Dying to Know

by TJ O'Connor

  “Look, Bear, I got somethin’ else.”

  “What?”

  “The Man says someone is runnin’ stuff around here without his blessin’. He’s pissed. I heard him talkin’ to New York. A heavy’s in town and the Man don’t like it. He told them this town is off-limits. Ya know, he gotta live here.”

  “Who’s the heavy? What’s he here for?”

  “Dunno. Could be about Tuck.” Mr. Sumo leaned closer to Bear and poked the air. “Like I told you, Bear, street sees things different. You know, like maybe you and the lady professor did him—or got someone to do it for her. Maybe the heavy.”

  Bear knocked away the man’s finger, grabbed his shirt, and slammed him back against the rain shelter wall. “You bastard. I told you to drop that. Who’s talking that shit?”

  “People, just people. Don’t go bitin’ the hand that feeds you. I never said it—but it’s out there. Somebody’s diggin’ around on that, too. Somebody wants your ass, paesano.”

  “Digging around?”

  “Yeah, digging around on the lady professor and you, Bear. Now settle down. I’m tellin’ you this for your own good. Somebody’s askin’ questions and making it sound like you and the wife, you know, gotta thing.”

  “Who’s spreading that?”

  Mr. Sumo shrugged.

  “Find out.” Bear tapped his watch. “Time’s ticking. Get me the name or I come for your boss. Capisce?”

  “Sure, sure. But I’m tellin’ ya’, he’s not playin’ in this one. Back off.”

  Bear reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. He tossed several at Mr. Sumo. “You find out who’s talking about Angela and me, Tommy. Find out fast. And you better start proving your boss is clean, too, or he’s going down. The easy way or the hard way.”

  So, Mr. Sumo’s real name was Tommy. Tommy was now more familiar but not quite a recollection yet. Bear turned and headed for his golf cart.

  “Yeah, yeah. And hey …”

  Bear stopped and turned around.

  “Watch your ass, Bear. If you get it next, who’s gonna keep my parole clean?”

  eight

  When Bear left Tommy on the fairway, he seemed angry and frustrated. He mumbled he was late for a “thing,” abandoned his golf cart in the parking lot, and drove off. He took his frustration out on the gravel driveway.

  Whatever his “thing” was, I didn’t want to be part of it.

  I decided to let him cool down and headed for home on foot. I strolled along trying to conjure up the magic words to launch me onto the spook-highway and materialize in my den, but nothing was working. Unable to find the formula, I settled on a five-mile fall hike to contemplate what my life—or lack of it—would now be.

  I never made it a mile.

  “Oliver—go to Angel. Go now.”

  Oliver? Who said that?

  Fear gripped me. It squeezed my thoughts in a fist and twisted. It was confusing, disorienting—I wasn’t afraid … Angel was. She appeared in front of me as her terror reached out and seized me. She was bracing herself against an unseen attack. Her thoughts were flustered and whirled in circles searching for protection, somewhere to hide and find safety. Her voice echoed in my head, calling me, begging me to help her.

  “Dammit, Oliver, go to her. Follow her.”

  The voice burned into my head. It was loud and commanding but it wasn’t from anyone near. It came from inside. Then I heard Angel again, begging me to reach her. Follow her … Yes. Like a distant light in the darkness, I followed her voice and it led me to her.

  _____

  She was pressed against a highboy dresser, fighting to slide it across the floor against the bedroom door. She was crying, but her teeth were clinched in determination. Something was terrifying her and she was barricading herself in.

  “Angel, what is it? What’s happening?”

  I recognized the room from the photographs on the wall. They were all Civil War monuments from throughout Virginia. This was one of Ernie Stuart’s guest rooms. The Monument Room, as Angel called it, where she slept last night.

  “Angel, I’m here. What’s wrong?”

  For a second, she stopped and looked around as though searching for my voice. Then she attacked the dresser again. The highboy stuck on the heavy corded rug. She grunted, tried to lift it free, but failed. She ran to the window and looked out. Whatever she saw—or didn’t see—calmed her, and she went to the door and pressed herself against it to listen.

  “Angel?”

  Her face paled and she returned to the highboy. This time, she succeeded in inching the dresser across the rug and against the bedroom door. For a second, she leaned against the wall, head cocked, straining to hear what I was sure she would not.

  I was wrong.

  Footsteps in the downstairs hall tromped to the foot of the stairs and stopped. Then they moved away, lighter this time. Seconds later, something crashed and rolled across the floorboards. Then one glass—then two—shattered on the floor. The footsteps retreated farther and went silent.

  “No, no, no.” Angel’s eyes flooded and she pressed all her weight against the highboy, leveraging it tighter against the door. “Please, go away, please.”

  I tried to slip into the hallway to see who was in the house. With the door shut, I was as much a prisoner as she. Twice, I tried to will myself from the room, but each time, Angel’s terror chained me to her. I couldn’t feel anything, sense anything, except her pounding heart and her grip on me, holding me fast, keeping me near.

  Whoever was downstairs, I was helpless to seek them out.

  The footsteps began again. This time, they grew louder in the downstairs hall and climbed the wooden stairs, clacking up the hardwood to the upstairs landing. A door down the hall from us opened and closed. Then another.

  Angel stiffened. She tried to muffle in a gasp but failed when the footsteps stopped outside her door.

  “Go away. Leave me alone, please.”

  “Dear?” The voice boomed outside the door, and for an instant, it startled both of us. “Angela? What’s wrong, dear?”

  Ernie.

  “Ernie? Oh, God, it’s you.”

  It took all her might and Ernie’s shoulder to force open the door and push the highboy clear enough for Angel to slip out. When she did, she crashed into his arms.

  “Angela?” He looked around her and through the half-open door. “What on earth are you doing?”

  “I was so scared.”

  “Dear? Scared?” He relaxed his embrace. “What’s all this?”

  “Someone is in the house.”

  Ernie turned and looked down the stairwell, then back to her. He shook his head but stopped when she began to cry. “Angela, it was me. I was cleaning up and dropped the tray of dishes and wineglasses from last night.”

  “No, before. I saw someone.”

  Ernie held her at arm’s length and tried to calm her with his best Uncle Ernie smile. “No one is down there. No one passed me on the main road or my private road. The front door was locked. There’s no one here.”

  “Yes. I heard someone. I saw a man.”

  “Angela. You’ve been through a lot. Maybe …”

  “No. I know what I saw.”

  He watched her, silent.

  I stood beside Ernie. “Hey, go take a look around, Ernie. She’s scared—terrified. Just look around.”

  “Ernie, I …” Her hands flashed up and wiped away the fear and confusion raining down her cheeks. “I know I saw someone.”

  He eased her hands from her face and held them. “All right, dear. I’ll look around.”

  “Hurry, and be careful.”

  She followed him through the house, room by room. With each door he opened, she withdrew and her body tensed with anticipation. Nothing but dusty bedspreads and a sink of breakfast dishes wait
ed. One of Ernie’s cats lay sleeping in the living room atop the couch, unthreatened by any intruder or their search. A dustpan of broken glass and china waited on the coffee table. At the front door, Ernie bade her lock it behind him and went outside.

  “I’ll go with him,” I whispered. “It’s safe, Angel. Everything is all right.”

  She never even flinched.

  Outside, I followed Ernie around the house in a haphazard inspection of windows, doors, and gardens. Angel shadowed us from inside, peeking out each window, racing to the next room until we navigated the house and returned to the front door. We found nothing. No scratched door latches. No jimmied window latches. No footprints or scuffmarks in the gardens. There were no signs of forced entry. Nothing. If there had been an intruder, he was more ghostly than I was.

  When Angel opened the front door, she was trembling.

  “Nothing.” Ernie slipped his arm around her. “No one, my dear. All is as it should be.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, very. Nothing has been disturbed. As I’ve said, the door was locked when I returned—I forgot some meeting notes and came back. There were no other cars on the county road for miles. No signs of anyone on my driveway.”

  Angel’s tone was shallow and uncertain. “Maybe they came through the woods. Maybe from another road.”

  “No, dear.”

  “Maybe …”

  “No, Angela. No.” Ernie guided her to the kitchen and into a high-back kitchen chair. “No one was here. You’ve had a very tough couple of days.”

  “No.”

  Ernie sighed and went about making tea. I sat at his kitchen table beside Angel. She gazed vacantly out the breakfast nook windows, shaking her head in slow, almost imperceptible movements. She was pale and her eyes dull with the battle between self-doubt and disbelief. When Ernie placed the steaming cup in front of her, she took it and sipped it.

  “I know what I saw and heard, Ernie. A man—a tall man—was trying to get into the house. I heard someone moving around outside, rattling the windows. I thought it was you or André. When I looked out, I saw a tall man.”

  “Can you describe him more?”

  She shook her head. “No, I just saw him walk around the corner of the house. I couldn’t see much from the window.”

  “Well, I suppose it could have been André. I left earlier this morning and he was still here. His car is gone now. I can find out when he left if you like.”

  “It wasn’t André.” She peered into her cup and the memory seemed to scare her again. “When … when I went to the top of the stairs, I heard someone in the living room. I called out but no one answered. I got frightened. When I turned to go to my room, I caught sight of someone passing through the foyer.”

  I leaned in close to her. “It’s okay, Angel. There’s no one here.”

  Angel turned and looked right at me as though she could see me. The thinnest of smiles edged the corners of her mouth. She glanced down; perhaps embarrassed at any whimsical notion I was close.

  “I saw him twice. I’d swear …”

  “Did you phone the police? Bear?”

  She shook her head. “No, my phone is in my purse in the living room. There’s no phone in the guest room.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” He sipped his tea, reaching out and taking her hand. “Angela, perhaps—just perhaps—it was a bad dream. Perhaps you were thinking of the other night. You said a man was in the foyer. Just like when Tuck …”

  “No. Call Bear. Please. First Tuck … now someone was here. Maybe …”

  Ernie shook his head but didn’t respond.

  “Listen, Ernie,” I said. “Call him. It’ll make her feel better.”

  Angel’s eyes glistened. “Please.”

  He relented. A few moments later, he was repeating the story for the second time. When he quieted to listen to Bear, he went into the living room to finish the call in private. Five minutes later, he returned to the kitchen. He poured himself more tea and sat down beside her.

  “There. We had a good chat. He’ll come over, but he felt there was no rush. He believes it’s stress.”

  “No rush?” Angel frowned and went to the sink with her tea mug. She was biting her lip and swirling the remnants of tea in her mug—a sign she was confused and questioning herself. The fear was passing and anger was filling the void.

  I didn’t see any intruder or feel any danger when I’d found Angel. It was her fear—her terror—that summoned me. Perhaps her hold on me blocked any other sense or sight I might have had. Her fear was real enough to her—real enough to reach from her world to mine and pull me to her.

  The reality of fear is that it need not be justified. Fear is fear. If a tall man was in Ernie’s house—for whatever reason—he terrified Angel. If no man rounded the corner of the house outside, if none passed through the foyer, if it were all a manifestation of shock and trauma, Angel was just as terrified.

  At that moment, I doubted any of us knew the truth.

  nine

  “I’ve got deputies checking the neighbors,” Bear told Angel, pulling into our driveway. “There’s not a house within a mile. We’ll be lucky if anyone saw anything.”

  “Do you believe me, Bear?” Angel didn’t look at him. “Ernie doesn’t.”

  “It’s not that. He thinks you had a bad dream. We both think it’s stress. I can relate to that.”

  Angel opened her door and stepped out, glaring at Bear over the hood of his cruiser. “So you think it’s all in my head.”

  From the backseat, I said, “I don’t.” Neither cared.

  “Honey, listen. There’s no trace of anyone getting into the house. Nothing. If my deputies find someone, I’ll let you know right away.”

  “Forget it,” she snapped, and ran into the house.

  We both watched her go. I said, “Can’t say I blame her. Something scared her. Dream or not. Something scared the hell out of her.”

  He peered over his shoulder as he climbed out of the cruiser and walked to the house. “Shit—right, it’s just stress.”

  Angel’s cry reached us as Bear shut the front door. He looked up to the second floor landing just as she slammed a closet door in our bedroom. “Damn. Damn them.”

  “Bear, hurry,” I yelled.

  He took the stairs three at a time. On the second bound, he tugged his handgun free. At the top of the landing, he pivoted, scanned the hall, and ran to the bedroom door and hesitated.

  Hercule was standing beside the door, wagging but refusing to enter. He’d been around Angel before when she was mad. He took a defensive position, just watching.

  She was standing in front of her dressing table. Her hands were folded across her chest. “Someone’s been in here.”

  Bear looked around. “What’s wrong?”

  “Someone’s been through my room.” She waved her hands in a flutter. “All my drawers have been rifled. Even my closet and clothes drawers. Someone’s dug through everything.”

  “You sure?” Bear said. “It looks all right to me.”

  “I just know.” She gestured to her notebook computer on her dressing table. “That was in my briefcase. It wasn’t strapped in and it was replaced upside down. I never leave it that way. Someone was snooping in my computer.”

  Bear holstered his handgun. “Maybe you left it that way in a hurry. Things have been crazy.”

  “No, and stop telling me that. Someone’s been through everything since I left yesterday.”

  I watched Bear snoop around the room. He checked the closet, nightstand, and pulled one or two of her dresser drawers open. “Crime scene boys might have …”

  “No. I straightened this room up before I left. They were done in here.”

  Now, why wasn’t he coming clean? As he disappeared into the walk-in closet for a second time, Bear-The-Detective didn
’t seem like Bear-My-Partner and best friend. We never kept secrets from each other. At least I didn’t think so. Now, he was playing his cards very close. Just today, I learned he had my house key, and Tommy, a snitch I never knew. And earlier, he’d searched this house top to bottom. That was apparently a secret, too.

  Were there others?

  “What’s on your computer?” he asked. “Anything, you know, that shouldn’t be?”

  I hoped he was referring to porn, evidence she was a serial killer, or perhaps the missing Watergate tapes. Deep down, I knew he wasn’t.

  “No, of course not.” Angel went to her dresser and checked each drawer, opening them and examining the contents. She did the same with both our nightstands. “Someone’s been rooting through these, Bear. I’m sure of it. Everything’s moved.”

  “Crime lab.”

  “I told you, they were done up here.” Angel’s face paled. “Or maybe not.”

  “Don’t worry, Angela. I’ll take care of it. I promise.”

  I went to him. “What’s going on, pal? Tell her you searched the house. Tell her about Spence and Clemens, too.”

  He didn’t. “What’s on your computer, Angela?”

  “Nothing. Just office work, emails, and some household bills. I do bills online. Tuck couldn’t figure any of that out, so I do it.”

  “Yes, I could. I chose not to.” Even dead, Angel was needling me about the bills. “I’m a cop, not a computer geek.”

  “Are you sure?” It was not a question. “Nothing on there that might get their little brains churning in the wrong direction? You know what I mean?”

  She nodded. “Of course I understand.”

  Understand what?

  Whatever their little secret was, I wasn’t in on it.

  Bear slid an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry, I’ll take it up with the captain.”

  “Am I a suspect?” Tears filled her eyes. “Am I?”

  “You have to understand. A spouse is always on the suspect list—always.” Bear kissed her cheek. “Forget it for now. You’ve had a rough morning. You okay?”